Methods to Madness

Alternative Schemes for Single-Member Redistricting

W. Walter Hearne

The following is a comparison and evaluation of the redistricting schemes used by
the states of Iowa and New Jersey. Both systems attempt to ensure greater
"fairness" by removing direct responsibility for drawing district maps from the
legislature. Although both systems are preferable to the usual type of redistricting
process, they cannot completely make up for the inadequacies of single-member districts.

What is Redistricting?

Although the terms "redistricting" and "reapportionment" are
sometimes used interchangeably, there is a distinction. Redistricting is simply the
process in which district lines are drawn. Reapportionment is the redistribution of seats
among political units (such as the redistribution of the 435 seats in the House of
Representatives among the states after each decennial census). Redistricting always occurs
after reapportionment, but it may also occur because of population shifts which do not
affect the number of seats.

Why is Redistricting Important?

Redistricting is an issue of tremendous importance, but it is one typically ignored by
the average citizen. Most people are unaware of the vast effect which redistricting has
upon the political process as a whole. It is a process which is vital to the parties, both
of which naturally seek to dominate the legislature and protect their incumbent
legislators. If a party is able to control the manner in which representatives are
elected, it has a better chance of obtaining these goals.

The more direct control the parties have over the drawing of district lines, the more
they are able to manipulate these lines to produce the results they want. In most states,
the responsibility for redistricting is given directly to the legislature. This method of
redistricting is the most likely to contravene the public interest. In extreme cases, it
produces districts in which the politicians have chosen their constituents rather than the
other way around. Recognizing this flaw, Iowa and New Jersey use different methods, both
of which are examined here following a brief overview of the use of single-member
districts in U.S. history.

Redistricting in American History

There is nothing in the Constitution which either mandates or precludes the use of
single-member districts. How the founders viewed the issue of single-member versus
at-large districts is debatable. By 1840, twenty-two of the thirty-one states exclusively
used single-member districts. Gerrymandering, or the manipulation of district lines to
achieve a desired political outcome, was a well-established practice by then. Up through
the early 1900s, several attempts were made to establish federal law requiring all states
to use single-member districts under certain criteria such as contiguity and compactness.
Most of these attempts were successfully resisted by the House. The ones which did pass
were temporary, virtually enforced, and seen by many officials as non-binding upon the
states.

Another movement against at-large elections emerged after World War II. This time the
movement was helped by the 1962 Supreme Court decision of Baker v. Carr, which
established the equal population principle for single-member districts. While many House
members feared that their reelection prospects would be diminished by court-ordered
at-large plans, others welcomed the shift of power away from over-represented rural areas.
Opposition was eventually overcome in 1967, when Congress passed a statute requiring
states with more than one representative to use single-member districts. This law remains
on the books today. The number of at-large districts used in state elections was
significantly reduced by court rulings under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which targeted
racial discrimination in elections.

Contemporary redistricting is not an enviable task. The states often seek to balance a
variety of interests, but nevertheless face numerous difficulties. Drawing and adopting a
plan is a monumental undertaking in itself. Legal challenges to adopted redistricting
plans have become common, and disputes sometimes take years to resolve. States which are
covered by the Voting Rights Act must have their plans approved by the U.S. Department of
Justice to ensure that minorities do not face discrimination.

Even after all the changes which now affect redistricting, politicians have lost no
taste for the gerrymander. The current complexity of redistricting sometimes allows those
in control to disguise their purposes, but in many states unabashed partisanship is
considered par for the course. Remarkably precise demographics and technological advances
make it possible for virtually anyone to create a plan suited to his or her own goals.

The Iowa System

The Iowa system seeks to increase "fairness" in redistricting by giving the
responsibility for drawing district lines to a non-partisan state agency rather than the
legislature. Iowa's idea of "fairness" is to control partisan influence in the
actual drawing of district lines. The legislature still has the final say over whether a
plan is adopted.

Legislative Services Bureau: Iowa's Legislative Services Bureau (LSB) must
produce three sets of redistricting plans. Each set contains three individual plans: one
each for the state house, state senate, and congressional districts. In drawing these
plans, the LSB is expressly barred from using partisan criteria (the addresses of
incumbents, voters' party affiliations, etc.). The LSB is instead limited to the use of
four neutral criteria, in descending order of priority: population equality; contiguity;
unity of counties and cities; and compactness.

The criterion of population equality
must be observed to conform with the judicial "one person, one vote" principle,
which requires states to justify even slight variations of population between districts.
The LSB determines the "ideal" population size for a district by dividing the
total population by the number of districts. The LSB's plans cannot have state senate or
house districts which deviate by more than 1% from this ideal, and the disparity between
the largest and smallest district can be no more than 5%. Like many midwestern states,
Iowa has counties which are mostly four-sided and few large population centers. The LSB's
criteria seeks to limit the number of cases in which district lines do not conform with
county lines. Crossing counties is occasionally permissible, on the condition that if a
city is to be split by a district line, larger cities must be split before smaller ones.

Contiguity and compactness are two criteria which address the shape of a district.
Districts which are not contiguous or compact are those which are often called
"bizarre" or described in the manner that one describes the shape of clouds in
the sky. Contiguity requires that a district be all in one piece; in other words, a person
should be able to travel through all parts of a district without needing to cross through
another. (In Iowa, a district in which two of its parts meet only at the corners is not
considered contiguous).

Compactness is more difficult to measure. The Iowa LSB considers compactness to be the
ratio of length to width as measured from the "centroid" of a district, which is
determined by adjusting the geometric center for the distribution of population.

Temporary Redistricting Advisory Commission: One of the LSB's sets is sent to a
Temporary Redistricting Advisory Commission (TRAC), made up of five members. Two each are
chosen by party officials in the legislature, but these four members cannot be partisan
office-holders. The fifth member is chosen by a majority vote of the first four. The TRAC
holds a minimum of three hearings on the set in different parts of the state. The TRAC
then sends the set to the legislature with the recommendation that the plan be either
adopted or rejected.

Legislative/Executive Action: The legislature may vote on the set, and nothing
more. Legislators may not amend any of the plans whatsoever. If the set is adopted, it is
sent to the governor, who has veto power. If the legislature rejects the set, it must
explain its reasons. In case of rejection, the LSB sends another set to the TRAC and the
process is repeated. If all three sets are rejected, the legislature is free to amend any
of the plans and draw up districts on its own.

History/Practice: Up until 1980, Iowa had redistricted purely through the
legislature. The decision to revise the system was made by state Republicans, who
controlled both the legislature and the governor's office. Ironically, the Republicans
expected the new system to prevent state Democrats from regaining strength, but soon
realized that their strategy had backfired. The first two sets of plans were rejected by
the legislature because they did not meet the Republicans' partisan objectives. Although
many Republicans wanted to reject the third set, thus freeing them to adopt their own
plans, they feared the effect of a threatened uproar by the Democrats. The Republicans
adopted the third set, apparently to avoid a voter backlash. Had the Republicans disowned
the system, they would have created a precedent undermining its legitimacy.

By the next round of redistricting in 1991, the Republicans had lost control of the
legislature, but still had the governor's office. Some observers predicted a nasty fight
over redistricting, especially since Iowa had lost one of its six congressional seats.
Contrary to these expectations, Iowa's redistricting experience was exceptionally smooth
and a plan passed into law well before most other states. The absence of partisan
influence was indicated by the large number of incumbents who were forced to run against
other incumbents in their new districts. The problem of the lost congressional district
was solved by pairing two incumbents, Jim Nussle (R) and David Nagle (D).

In this case, divided government worked in the system's favor. The Democrats, who had
sharply criticized Republicans for their threatened abuse of the system in 1981, obviously
wanted to avoid looking hypocritical. The Republican governor had little incentive to
reject any plan passed by the legislature, since each exercise of the veto potentially
brought the Democrats one step closer to drawing the districts themselves.

The New Jersey System

The New Jersey system adopts a different approach for bringing more
"fairness" to redistricting. The state constitution calls for the parties to
draw up the plans through a bipartisan commission. Any plan adopted by the commission
immediately goes into effect, with the exception that they governor may veto the
congressional plan. The legislature does not vote on any plan's adoption.

The New Jersey Apportionment Commission: The New Jersey Apportionment Commission
(NJAC) is structured similarly to the Iowa TRAC, but is larger. The chairman of each party
appoints five members. The ten-member NJAC must reach an agreement on a redistricting plan
within a specified period of time. There is no bar on the use partisan criteria in the
plan, but the commission is required by law to observe contiguity and compactness. If the
NJAC fails to reach an agreement by the deadline, a neutral eleventh member (public
member) is appointed by the chief justice of the state supreme court and charged with
moving the two parties to an agreement by a newly set deadline. In the case of an even
split, the public member casts a deciding vote. The constitution does not provide for a
remedy should the expanded NJAC fail to reach agreement.

History/Practice: The NJAC was provided for by an amendment to the state
constitution in 1966. The decision to change the process was spurred by the state supreme
court's invalidation of the senate's districting plan under the equal population
principle. The commission method has been used since.

Deadlock on the commission necessitated the appointment of a public member in 1981; a
plan was quickly approved thereafter. The process was somewhat more complicated in 1991
due to demographic changes and dissatisfaction with the Democratic-controlled government.
Expecting to lose big in the next election, the Democrats initially tried and failed to
challenge the census data on the grounds that it inadequately counted racial minorities.
Since the arrival of the census data begins the NJAC's allotted time period, the challenge
prevented the parties from negotiating before the first deadline arrived. The chief
justice appointed the same public member who had served in 1981, and he was able to move
the parties to agreement before the final deadline.

Evaluating the Two Systems

Both the Iowa and New Jersey systems contain mechanisms which blunt but do not
eliminate partisan influence in redistricting. Both systems, to different degrees,
strengthen the hand of neutral redistricting criteria. Perhaps the greatest common benefit
of the two systems is that they prevent the majority party from unfairly increasing its
existing advantage by manipulating district lines.

Both systems rely to a large degree on the parties to restrain themselves and maintain
the legitimacy of the process. Political pressure is the primary, and maybe the only,
force which prevents the parties from subverting the public's good faith. Although this
type of pressure should not be undervalued, it is by no means a guarantee that politicians
will adhere to "fairness" in redistricting.

Institutional integrity is another necessary component of success under the two
systems. In Iowa, the continued approval of the LSB by both parties is essential to the
object of "fairness." In New Jersey, the ability of the NJAC's ten partisan
members and especially its public member to move towards agreement is of distinguished
importance.

Since the public member's duty is not to move the parties to any agreement but to a
"fair" agreement, the choice and behavior of the public member is crucial to the
New Jersey system. Donald Stokes, a Princeton University professor who served as public
member in 1981 and 1991, believes that the public member should do more than act as a mere
"tie-breaker" between the opposing interests of the parties. It is the public
member's responsibility, according to Stokes, to represent the public interest and move
the parties to a "fair" plan which can pass constitutional muster. Stokes
believes that a "fair" plan is one which allows each party to win a number of
seats that is approximately proportional to its share of the popular vote. This
interpretation of "fairness" means that the NJAC tries to balance the number of
"safe" districts (where one party is almost certain to win) in order to achieve
this goal. This is not the first time that the idea of "equal" gerrymandering
has been advanced. A House committee reviewing the 1901 redistricting laws concluded that
"the division of political power is so general and diverse that notwithstanding the
inherent vice of the system of gerrymandering, some kind of equality of distribution
results."

There is, however, no clear indication of how the public interest comes into play in
the New Jersey system. Given that "fairness" may be taken as the balancing of
"safe" districts, it is unclear exactly how the New Jersey system benefits
voters. The involvement of public interest ultimately turns on the interpretation of
"fairness." From a different perspective, consensus between the parties does not
mean "fairness" and the New Jersey plan thus leaves something to be desired.

The New Jersey plan seems to perceive voters as a means to an end, namely the
"proportionate" representation of the parties. It might be called
"responsible" gerrymandering, but how does it benefit the voter? Is the
Republican voter in a purposefully created Democratic district to suppose that he will be
given voice by Republicans from other districts? If so, doesn't this belie the
single-member district's ostensible purpose to provide geographic representation? Do
legislators from New Jersey represent people, or parties? Given the circumstances, the New
Jersey plan should be considered an improvement, but it does not seem "fair"
from the voter's point of view.

By contrast, the Iowa system takes the initiative out of the parties' hands. Each plan
which comes before the Iowa legislature is presumably "fair", and the onus is on
the parties to respect the public interest. Under this system "fairness" is
taken to be the removal of partisan redistricting criteria, and thus protects voters from
the harmful effects of gerrymandering. Iowa should be congratulated on this system, but
the question is whether it is easily translatable to larger states which would probably be
reluctant to damage their powerful incumbents in Congress. The larger states' reservations
could be overcome by nationalizing the scope of change and thus equalizing the threat to
incumbents. The House, however, has been resistant to changes which could potentially hurt
the reelection prospects of the majority of its members.

Other realities may likewise reduce the Iowa system's adaptability. It may also be
difficult to implement in states which must have their redistricting plans pre-cleared by
the federal government under the Voting Rights Act. These states must necessarily take
racial demographics into account, and there are clear links between the numbers of
minority voters and party prospects. Steps taken to protect minority voters could thus
conflict with neutral criteria. Larger states, and especially those with high
partisanship, may find it difficult to pass a plan which pairs a lot of incumbents
together.

Conclusions

What are we to make of these alternatives? First, it should be cautioned that there is
no way to completely eradicate partisan influence in the redistricting process without
locking out duly elected officials. It does seem that a greater degree of
"fairness" can be achieved with single-member districts by taking district maps
out of the hands of the amateur cartographers in state legislatures. As we have seen,
however, what constitutes "fairness" is subject to judgment. The fundamental
differences between the Iowa and New Jersey systems can be traced to this judgment. In
Iowa, the purpose is to reduce partisan influence as much as possible while preserving the
legislature's ultimate say over the adoption of a plan. In New Jersey, the purpose is to
balance partisan interests so that neither party is able to dominate the redistricting
process. Both systems have their virtues when considered on their own terms. Yet it is
highly unlikely that true proportionality, accurately reflecting both the party
affiliations and personal candidate preferences of the electorate, can ever be achieved in
strict single-member systems regardless of the redistricting method.

Resources:Guide To U.S. Elections. Congressional Quarterly, 1985.

Honey, Rex Dean and Douglas Deane Jones. "An Ethical Escape From the Political
Thicket: The Iowa Model For Electoral Districting." A copy of this report was
obtained through Iowa's Legislative Services Bureau.

Stokes, Donald E., Legislative Redistricting by the New Jersey Plan. New
Brunswick, NJ: The Fund for New Jersey, 1993.